


Last Bullet

by Laily



Series: Natural Selection [2]
Category: Doctor Strange (2016), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Action, Angst, Assassination Attempt(s), BAMF Stephen Strange, Brotherly Love, Child Death, Developing Relationship, Drama, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Eventual Romance, First Kiss, Gun Violence, Hurt Loki (Marvel), Hurt/Comfort, Loki (Marvel) Needs a Hug, M/M, Post-Thor: Ragnarok (2017), Protective Stephen Strange, Protective Thor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-04
Updated: 2020-07-17
Packaged: 2021-03-04 18:42:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 15,548
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25071088
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Laily/pseuds/Laily
Summary: Haunted by one too many deaths, Loki of Asgard tries his best to move on, but the world simply would not let him. Becoming a better person should not be this life-threatening, should it?Doctor Stephen Strange has long suspected that there is more to the God of Mischief than his facade suggests. The beginning of an infatuation (masquerading as curiousity) is telling him to peel the layers off one by one; the question is: Can he keep Loki alive long enough?This is a stand-alone and only loosely follows Vertical Limit, the first in the series.
Relationships: Brunnhilde | Valkyrie & Loki (Marvel), Loki & Thor, Loki/Stephen Strange, Stephen Strange & Thor
Series: Natural Selection [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1661710
Comments: 33
Kudos: 129





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [DocWordsmith](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DocWordsmith/gifts).



It was definitely not the time to be squeamish, certainly not when the sound of a mother’s bloodcurdling wails rang shrill in his right ear, and the gurgling of blood trapped behind a child’s collapsed airway a horrible rasp in his left.

“Lackey,” a quiet voice called.

“Give me some room, damnit – ” Loki could feel his lips move to form the words but the cacophony in his ears was drowning out not only his voice, but the manic pounding of his heart; he could feel it slamming against his ribcage in time with every spurt of precious blood he had been spending the last few minutes struggling to staunch.

 _How much more could this child stand to lose before she dies? How long do I have? Where is Thor?_ Thought after frantic thought assaulted his addled brain at lightning speed.

_How long?_

He worked the tips of his fingers through the gaping wound in the girl’s neck; whatever the object was, it was lodged in the notch where her two collarbones met. He needed to get it out, _must_ get it out, it was the only way one could resume breathing after all – “I’ve almost got it.”

“She’s gone, My Prince.” A hand, heavy yet gentle, grasped his shoulder. It was a bold touch, but a strangely familiar one.

_Heimdall?_

“Aisling…” the mother wept. “My girl. My sweet, sweet girl…”

“You did this.” Spittle flew past lips trembling in grief as the woman visibly shook with fury. “You brought this upon us all!”

“Orla!”

Healers and civilians alike held the raging woman back as she snarled and wrestled against the restraints, murder in her eyes.

“Come away, Loki.”

_Thor?_

Loki looked up into the sun.

Thor’s remaining eye seemed to have taken on the missing one’s glow; it burned a bright, electric blue, yet Loki could not help but stare and stare into the abyss that was Thor’s gaping eye socket.

He could see the torn ends of fine muscle fibres that were supposed to hold his brother’s missing eye, the one cut out by their dear Sister, the Goddess of Death.

Hela. If Hela is dead, then surely? Loki whipped his head around to look at Aisling, the girl whose name he now only knew now that she was dead,

_Dead by your hands._

“There’s nothing more you can do. It’s too late.”

Too late.

“She was too little.”

Too little, too late. 

___________________________________

“Hey. We’re here.” A hand jostled him awake none too gently; had he not recognised her voice, the owner of said hand would have found herself permanently maimed. Or at least injured in strategic places –

“Come on, get up!” A sharp tip of a boot dug into his calf. “No sleeping on the job, Lackey.”

Loki opened his eyes dangerously slowly. “Will you tell on me to the King? Oh please tell me you will.”

“Aww, and here I thought we’d come to a mutual agreement. You turn a blind eye when I drink, I look the other way when you…do whatever it is you do. Or don’t do.”

“I have just spent three weeks on this voyage with you, Valkyrie. Do give me some credit,” Loki said tiredly.

“Oh, I don’t doubt you deserve it. No one dares to wander into Asgardian waters now.” Now that she was out on the deck in preparation to moor the boat, Valkyrie had had to raise her voice to make herself heard over the sound of the wind, but the glee was still audible. “I’d personally cut down anyone who says you don’t pull your weight around here.”

Loki took too long to decide if he should be flattered by Valkyrie’s display of fealty, or bothered by the notion that there were still some who thought he was not doing enough.

_Too little, too late._

“And don’t worry. Your secrets are safe with me, until such time you piss me off enough that I may or may not accidentally run my mouth.” Valkyrie topped it all off with a merry warning, “But one thing for sure, you won’t see me coming, Highness.”

“Yes, I suppose your class of stealth is legendary,” Loki murmured, stretching his arms high above his head. How he could have fallen asleep despite Brunnhilde’s reckless boating in broad daylight was beyond him, but now that he was awake, he felt far from rested.

“Experience has indeed made you wiser.” She stuck her head in through one of the portholes, which incidentally, happened to be the one closest to Loki.

The smirk on Valkyrie’s face vanished, only to be replaced by a peculiar look vaguely reminiscent of curious alarm as she nakedly studied the prince’s morose profile. “Same dream, huh.”

“Excuse me?”

Valkyrie only waited expectantly. The Prince had perfect hearing after all.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Must just be my imagination then.”

“Must be.”

With a great sigh, Valkyrie lowered the pontoon and waved her hand about in an exaggerated grand gesture. “After you, Highness.”

“There’s no need for all the pageantry, Val – oh sorry, I forgot.” Loki patted her shoulder placatingly as he walked past her, ducking to avoid hitting his head on the beam. The morning sun hit his face as he stepped out onto the deck. “Do not envy me for my exceptionally long legs.” 

Valkyrie gave her royal companion a right royal middle finger salute before leaping across the water from the boat onto the dock just as easily as Loki had done. “I don’t know about you but my sea legs are dying for a drink.”

Loki opened his mouth as if to say something presumably snarky, but wisely stayed his tongue. For her short legs, he was fairly sure Val’s knees could reach his groin…he had first-hand experience on what those kneecaps could do.

Valkyrie shouldered Loki out of the way; after three weeks at sea, the last hundred yards of the jetty might as well be a mile.

“Thank you for letting me finish.” She gave a longing sigh, “A drink on land. At long last.”

“I was just about to say,” Loki feigned surprise. “Took the words right out of my mouth, Captain.”

“Always a pleasure, First Mate.”

_____________________________________

“You are the wordsmith between us two, Loki.”

“Flattery gets you as far as my not politely asking you to leave, while I perform my ablutions, Brother,” Loki sighed as he fussed with the strapping around his wrist. “In my absence, you seem to have taken up the unsavoury habit of intruding upon my private moments under the pretence of fraternal camaraderie.”

“Exactly. See how you always prove my point about you? Others would just tell me to turn around but you?” Thor clasped his hands in his lap, clearly amused. “And who says anything about pretending? I am glad to see you back.”

Loki threw him a dirty look before he began taking off his clothing, starting with the outermost layer of his leathers. “And yet you couldn’t contain your excitement until I am more presentable.”

“You’re not bashful now, Brother?”

“Hardly.” There was a tinge of fatigue in Loki’s voice; if one were to listen to it carefully enough, they would be alarmed to find that it had nothing to do with physical exhaustion…not entirely.

Loki strode to his mini bar cart which was bare except for a few tea bags and a dried-out bowl of sugar cubes. He poured himself a glass of water from the crystal carafe, somewhat glad he had nothing to offer his brother to drink.

“So what is this matter of international urgency that simply could not wait, then?”

“We have been summoned by the United Nations to attend a special congress.”

“Which Council?”

Thor only stared at Loki blankly.

“Economic and Social Council? UNICEF? High Commissioner for Refugees, what?”

The blank stare remained carefully steady. So, Thor knew what he was really asking, and that made Loki’s blood boil further, much more than Thor’s eventual response did.

“The Security Council.”

Loki placed his drink back on the tray, careful not to crack the tempered glass lest he show too much his mounting distress.

“Take the Valkyrie with you then. I’m sure she would appreciate the change in scenery.” Not to mention a change in clothes, Loki added silently. Thor’s second (or was it third, now that Loki was back in the picture?) -in-command could do well substituting a power suit for her now-ubiquitous puffer vest, her natural leadership skills aside.

 _Every little thing helps to return the glory to Asgard’s Halls_ , a tiny voice inside him said.

Glory. What a tuneful but vapid notion.

“They have specifically asked for you to join me. As part of my…retinue, shall we say.” Thor smiled regally. “Brunnhilde is to stay here to govern in our absence.”

Loki scoffed inwardly. “They can’t get me here, now they try this?”

“No one’s trying to _get_ you, Loki,” Thor said quietly.

“What more could they possibly want from me?” Loki said irately, realising how dangerously petulant he must sound, but the frustration was getting the better of him.

“You are our Secretary of State for Defence. Goes without saying,” Thor said.

Loki balked. “Since when?”

“You’re the mastermind behind our policy framework, the wherewithal and most of the administrative matters pertaining to the defence of our newly-formed nation,” Thor said matter-of-factly.

“Thor…” Loki drawled out his brother’s name warningly. “What have you done?”

“I may or may not have intentionally nominated you as the Head of our Defence Portfolio. Officially. Loudly.” Thor cleared his throat. “Quite loudly, in fact.”

Loki groaned and dropped his rear end onto a chair, his head into his hands.

“I meant what I said before, Loki. I have every intention of having you rule at my side.”

“Yes, but quietly!” Loki hissed. “I do not need all this publicity, Thor!”

Thor only shrugged his giant shoulders and Loki’s spacious two-seater couch disappeared under his bulk as he leaned against it, looking much too comfortable for Loki’s liking. “There’s no better man for the job.”

“Of course there isn’t! Because Valkyrie is no man and she is perfect for the job!”

“I do not need your sword arm for this, Brother. I need your wit, your charisma. Your shrewd intuition.”

A deathly glare. “Shrewd.”

“I’m sorry, did I say shrewd? I meant astute.”

Loki remained stubbornly mum.

“I need you, Loki.”

“So where do they want us this time? At least tell me it’s Geneva _.” Please don’t say New York. Please don’t say New York –_

“The UN Security Council Headquarters in New York City.”

Loki’s grievous moan was so uncharacteristically piteous it rang all kinds of alarm bells in Thor’s head. “What is the matter? You’re looking grey, are you still seasick? I told Valkyrie to pack enough water on board – ”

“Thor, shut up.”

“If you need a moment, I can give the Wizard a call to give us a few hours so you can lie down and rest – ”

“Thor!” Loki shouted, fighting down the urge to strangle his brother with all he had. “What. Wizard?”

“You know him, that Doctor. The one who helped you.”

“The charlatan?”

“That’s not a very nice name to call your friend.”

“He’s not,” Loki said hotly. “And what do you mean, a few hours?”

Thor searched Loki’s face suspiciously. “Are you sure you did not get a heatstroke while at sea? Did I not say we were going to New York for that special session?”

“That’s _today?_ ”

“Well I _am_ spontaneous. Airplanes have stopped giving out free peanuts onboard and the seats are too small for me anyway.”

Thor was avoiding Loki’s eyes, and that could only mean one thing –

“Thor…”

“Ah! Speak of the devil!” A crackle of static energy suddenly sizzled the air heralding the oncoming arrival of one Doctor Stephen Strange…and Loki was not even dressed.

_“Thor!!”_

_________________________________________

“I did not agree to this,” Loki hissed.

He and the Sorcerer Supreme both turned to look at the blond figure absent-mindedly perusing the many relics on display in the Sanctum drawing room.

“Thor?” “I thought I told you to take care of this?” Loki and Stephen demanded at the same time.

 _“This?”_ Loki’s eyes narrowed as he directed his wrath once again at the infuriating man standing in front of him. Never mind that they had stayed clear of each other’s spatial and temporal dimensions of cross-interference for the past few months; never mind that the last time they met, Loki had been under the doctor-sorcerer’s mercy for a time –

“And what, pray tell, is this?”

“Standard procedure dictates that foreign dignitaries should surrender all weapons upon entry.”

“I carry no weapons,” Loki said flatly. “You can search me if you want.”

“ _You_ are the weapon,” Stephen said coolly. “Your Brother was supposed to tell you what ‘surrendering’ entails.”

“Call it as it is, Strange,” Loki growled. “If you’re going to strip me of my magic, just bloody say so.”

His piercing eyes found their way to bore imaginary holes in the side of his brother’s head. “You and Thor, both. Mincing your words like a bunch of mardy children.”

Stephen realised just how much he did not miss Loki’s headache-inducing tirades. “I don’t like this any more than you do.”

“Save it, Doctor. Let’s just pretend we’re both here on our own free will,” Loki spat. “At least then only one of us would be lying.”

He waved an irritable hand. “Whatever catastrophe that befalls your beloved city, you humans would still find a way to pin it on _me_. Magic or no magic.”

“Yes. Everything _is_ about you, Loki. Whatever will we do without you gracing us with your presence once in a while. You’re a billion-dollar industry.”

“Good to know I could generate such good investment returns.”

“Yes, yes, you should be proud…” Stephen said absently, eyeing Loki’s formal Asgardian getup from head to toe. “You shouldn’t wear that by the way.”

Loki cocked an elegant eyebrow. “I shouldn’t, therefore I shan’t?”

“Not only does it violate the dress code, you’d set off every metal detector within ten blocks of the place.”

Be it with inner laughter or fury, Loki’s index finger shook slightly as he pointed it at his brother, all bedecked and golden in his full Asgardian regalia.

“Thor is the Head of State. Even if he was wearing a toga made out of chicken feathers, they’d have no choice but to let him in as long as it is your national dress.”

“Oh for the love of – ” Loki threw his hands up in the air. “Turn around then!”

When Loki had finally done changing, “Well?” he snapped.

Stephen’s undisguised look of approval did not go unnoticed. “Nothing says modest glamour like a thrifty royal.”

“Yes. Most of my annual clothing budget now goes to purchasing warhead missiles and torpedoes,” Loki replied sweetly.

He brushed a piece of imaginary lint off his well-cut, black suit. “Now let’s get this over with.”

“Take a seat.”

An oak wingback chair in arabesque velvet appeared behind Loki, and he begrudgingly took a seat, recognising it as the same one Stephen had spent hours sitting in by his sickbed all those months ago.

An identical chair materialised just opposite, and in the blink of an eye, Stephen had taken a seat right in front of him.

“May I?” The human sorcerer held out a hand expectantly.

“Loki, are you sure you want to go through with this?” Thor asked suddenly.

Loki looked up in surprise; he had almost forgotten Thor was in the same room, ever the silent spectator.

“Now you ask me,” he huffed and blew a stray curl off his forehead. He threw his brother a dirty look for good measure. “Do you or do you not wish me to play a bigger role in the administration of our new government?”

“Will there be lasting harm, Wizard?”

“No,” Stephen said sharply after a very small pause. “My spell will only bind his abilities to perform advanced acts of magic but will not interfere with basic physiology such as breathing, internal homeostasis, brain function – ”

“Thank the Norns for small mercies.” Loki rolled his eyes. Then his eyes narrowed in alarm as he backtracked on Stephen’s casually-worded terms and conditions of the spell that was going to bind, “ _All_ advanced acts of magic?”

“Conjuring. Teleporting. Skywalking. Weaponry. Mind attacks, illusions, anything that isn’t strictly…human,” Stephen said carefully, studying the lines on Loki’s palm. “Same goes to conjuring mental and physical shields.”

Loki sank back in his chair, his face a frozen mask of horrified disbelief.

“He might as well walk around the streets naked,” Thor said flatly. “With a bull’s eye on his back.”

Stephen was momentarily quiet. “Where’s the rest of your entourage? Are they coming?”

“Who?” Thor asked in confusion.

“Protection details? Security officers?” Stephen tried again when all he received in response were blank stares. “Bodyguards?”

“We the Sons of Odin have no need for bodyguards.”

“Yes, but – ” Stephen caught Loki’s eyes. “ _You_ will be quite defenceless.”

“What, with all my nuclear missiles stashed in my pockets? Hardly.”

“I don’t know about this.” Thor was looking mighty uncomfortable. “You did not mention this in detail the last time we spoke on the telephone.”

“I was assured that the parameters would be heavily guarded. Asgardians are very welcome in our city. Your help has been invaluable in the Great War.”

Thor began to pace. “You don’t sound too sure, Strange.”

“Does your Government mean to harm me, Doctor?” Loki asked sweetly.

“No.” Stephen shook his head. “But diplomatic immunity can only protect you so much.”

“Then I refuse.” Loki pulled his hand out of Stephen’s weak grasp and rose to his feet. At his full height, he towered over Stephen, who began to raise his head slowly, the sharp angles of his cheekbones deflecting some of the shadows Loki’s silhouette cast upon his face.

“It’s already done,” Stephen said slowly, his voice low.

_What?_

Loki raised his palm to the level of his eye, his heart racing. He tried to summon a mage light, but to his horror, could not conjure even the smallest one.

“Give it back,” he said dimly.

“I’m afraid I can’t do that.” Stephen’s voice was heavy with regret. “With luck, you’ll be in and out of there in a few hours, and I will gladly reverse the suppression spell and send you on your way home.”

“You tricked me,” Loki whispered. _I trusted you._

“Believe me, I have no wish to see you harmed,” Stephen stressed. “But I am sworn to my duties. As are you.”

They locked eyes for longer than they should, before Loki, now fully aware of how truly defenceless, how _human_ he was, chose to be the first to tear his gaze away. It was the only leverage he had.

“Come, Majesty. Let us leave this place.”


	2. Chapter 2

“Why did you not resist, Brother?”

“What?”

“Why did you just sit there and let him do that to you?”

The finger Loki had been unconsciously tapping against his thigh came to an abrupt stop.

“You were the one who brought me there, Thor,” Loki said slowly.

“Yes, but I thought – ” Thor huffed, his face a twisted grimace of blatant dissatisfaction.

“Why do you look so cross?” Loki asked quietly. “What did you think he was going to do?”

Thor’s expression cracked, giving way to horrified indignation. Loki was soothed by the lack of guilt in Thor’s flustered mannerisms, though not by much.

“Brother, if I had known…” Thor raked a hand through his hair before cupping the back of his own neck, staring viciously ahead at nothing in particular.

Loki’s infuriating calmness could only be a front for the bitterness he was truly feeling. “Is this not what you wanted?”

“Not disable you completely, certainly!” Thor said hotly.

“My magic isn’t some itemised inventory you can pick and choose which function to disable, which to leave operational,” Loki explained curtly. “Seidr is…fluid. Dynamic. Given time, yes, perhaps he could have at least spared my barest defenses, but the wizard’s magic is…ill-suited for such refined, ad hoc task.”

Thor still looked mighty unhappy, his face dark and grim. Even the sun felt lower, its heat not as fierce on Loki’s face as before.

“Wait. You are upset because I did not put up enough of a fight? When you knew very well that I was the disadvantaged party?” Loki shook his head in disgust. “The contract they had me sign when we first settled on Midgard made damn sure of it.”

“The first time you met him you pulled your daggers on him.”

“Again, your expectation of me is in direct conflict with your own orders, my King. Had you wished me to attack the man, you need only command it, and it will be so.” Loki cracked into a smirk tiny enough to escape Thor’s notice, or so he thought, had Thor not looked at the mirror image reflected in the tinted window.

“That is not what I meant and you know it,” Thor growled.

“I was under the impression that I was to play nice with these mortals, was I not?”

“Nice, yes, but not...”

“Not what?” Loki demanded snappishly. “Spit it out, Thor.”

“It isn’t like you to be this docile,” Thor said in a surly manner. “That is all.”

“Docile?” Loki scoffed. “I have been called many things in my lifetime. Never that.”

“That is the root of my concern. Because you’re not,” Thor declared. “You never have been.”

The deep breath Loki took felt too short to fill his lungs. “Has the Valkyrie been telling you things?”

Thor’s chin snapped up. “So there is something to tell.”

“No,” Loki retorted. “Give it a rest, Thor.”

“Something is bothering you.”

“A lot of things bother me.”

“Not like this.”

Loki’s heart began to pound under the intensity of Thor’s scrutiny. “Oh?”

“He hasn’t...he hasn’t done anything to you?”

“Who, Second-Rate? That’s quite an obvious disregard on your part for what he had just done, Brother,” Loki sniffed, moving just that one inch away to give the illusion that he found the present company ill-liked, beloved or not. “If someone should accost me at knifepoint at some point between now and our return to Asgard, the thought of being denied the pleasure of stabbing him first infuriates me.”

“No, I meant back then, when we saw him last. You...never told me what happened that night.”

“When you ‘made’ him trawl through my brain, you mean?” Sometimes there was no means more satisfying than air-quoting to convey sarcasm. “No, he has not cast a mind spell over me, Thor. Contrary to popular belief, I do have autonomous control over my thoughts.”

When I’m not being quartered while I watch my own entrails dry out on the rat-infested ground in front of me, that is, Loki longed to say, but that would not put Thor in a diplomatic mood the King of Asgard should ideally be in to negotiate with, and subsequently convince the faceless men in suits why New Asgard needed to develop its own weapons program, as was the right of every sovereign country.

“I merely _consented_ , Loki. I did not bully him into doing anything he was not prepared to do.”

“Yes, keep telling yourself that.”

To his credit, Thor’s apologetic sigh at least sounded genuine. “Look, I know you didn’t trust him – ”

“I didn’t trust any of them. I still don’t.”

“But he was the only one who was in the position to help you.”

“Yes, you’re such an enabler, Thor. What would I have done without you,” Loki said with a sweetness so jarringly false, he barely registered the transition from mockery to genuine wonder as he regarded Thor with wary curiousity. “You confuse me. One second, Stephen Strange is an evil sorcerer who preys on the vulnerable, and the next, he’s a lifesaver.”

Thor went quiet, but Loki knew the peace was only temporary; he could tell from the way his brother was squirming in his seat, noticeably discomfited.

True enough, when Thor spoke again, the anxiety was almost tangible. “I know where Stephen Strange is coming from. He is the Keeper of Time itself, and Lord Protector of Midgard against evil acts of sorcery, like Karnilla the Norn Queen once protected Asgard.”

Thor glanced at his brother out of the corner of his eye. “It is your response to his advances that baffled me. Or lack of one, rather.”

This time, Loki found himself rendered silent for a change.

How was he to tell Thor that all things in the universe demanded balance? Tip the scale in one direction, and watch entire worlds obliterated, half the living creatures annihilated?

How was he to tell Thor that Stephen Strange may have pulled him out of a hellish dreamscape and saved his sanity, if not his life, but in doing so, had inadvertently unlocked a Pandora’s box of memories Loki had worked so hard to suppress ever since –

 _Ragnarok_.

Loki surreptitiously studied his brother’s stiff, tense profile, and felt a rush of profound sadness wash over him.

Thor was still so young…younger than Odin had been when he ascended the throne of Asgard following King Bor’s death. Too young to shoulder the task imposed upon him to rebuild Asgard from nothing but the ashes of those who had died at the hands of –

_The Berserkers raised from the bowels of Odin’s vault?_

_Hela? Surtur?_

Loki’s own hands twitched.

The laws of the universe stood, with or without Thanos.

One person must die, for another to live.

“Maybe we should have taken Strange up on that offer to arrange for a bodyguard,” Thor muttered.

Loki frowned. “Whatever for?”

Thor did not answer, hoping his reticence was self-explanatory.

“Thank you for your concern, Thor, but I believe I can take on a Midgardian or two without my magic. There is nothing wrong with my physical strength.”

“Well, Strange did say it should only be a few hours.” Thor fiddled with his thumbs in a rare display of nerves. Perhaps he too, was as anxious as Loki was pretending not to be about the outcome of the day’s agenda. “I suppose I will have to visit my favourite shawarma place some other day.”

Loki felt a small smile tug the corner of his lips. “I suppose you will.” Here was a curious afterthought, “Why do you never take me there?”

Thor shrugged. “It feels wrong to me somehow. That was where we had our meal after defeating y- the _Chitauri_.”

“Of course.”

“Do you want me to take you there?” Thor asked haltingly.

“No,” Loki answered far too quickly, too curtly. It was another place where he did not belong, of course. “Forget I even asked.”

“Loki…”

“How long till we get there? Ten minutes?” Loki leaned his head against the tinted window. “I think I shall take a power nap, if you don’t mind.”

Thor said something, but Loki was already tuning out every sound, save for the soft lull of the engine. Despite his best efforts, the beating of his own heart was too loud to silence, so he closed his eyes and prayed for it to stop.

____________________________________________

Wong stepped out onto the steps where Stephen was still standing long after the Odinsons’ chartered limousine disappeared from view. “Was that Sparks and Bojangles I just saw leaving?”

“That would be quite funny had you actually called them that to their faces.”

“I like my current state of being alive,” Wong shrugged. “Nothing wrong with Thor’s axe arm, even if you’ve got Loki’s hands bound, metaphysically speaking.”

Stephen snorted but said nothing.

“That didn’t take you very long,” Wong commented.

“No, it didn’t.”

Wong caught Stephen’s frown. “Something the matter?”

“It was too easy,” Stephen said reluctantly.

“What was?”

“Suppressing Loki’s magic.”

“Here we go.” Wong rolled his eyes. “Strange, what did I say about humblebragging?”

Stephen glared. “I don’t. Brag.”

“As all humblebraggers say,” Wong sighed. “Or are you complaining? Complainers are more likeable than humblebraggers of any type.”

Stephen was starting to look very cross now. “Wong…” he said warningly.

“I don’t know why you’re fretting,” Wong continued breezily. “I would be over the moon that the Sanctum has not been destroyed in yet another alien confrontation.”

“It shouldn’t have been that easy.”

“Well, you did help him the last time. Maybe he’s just learnt to trust you.”

“Loki?” Stephen scoffed, “Trust me?”

Wong peered in Stephen’s face intently. “Well, you do have a trustworthy face. You possess eyebrows, for starters. The Ancient One didn’t.”

“Be serious, Wong.”

“Always.”

Ice finally broken, they both chuckled, Stephen albeit uneasily, Wong quite proudly. It was not often that he found his jokes well-received.

“Maybe he didn’t think it was a big deal. Didn’t the agent you spoke to on the phone say it shouldn’t take more than a day? When you asked him the timeframe for the suppression spell they wanted you to cast?”

“It’s never not a big deal, Wong. Magic is _life_ to a being like Loki. You don’t part with it easily. Certainly not as willingly.”

“That’s...probably your answer right there, Sorcerer Supreme.”

Stephen turned his head slowly to see if his best friend was joking, but Wong’s stoic face remained as expressionless as ever.

“Do we even know what suicidal looks like on an alien?” Wong’s soliloquy continued. “Certainly not me. You’ve been in his head. And you used to be a doctor, so.”

“I doubt human psychiatry applies very much in this case, Wong.”

“I still don’t see why you should be worried, though.”

“I’m not worried - ” Stephen began to protest.

“Unless there’s something you know that the rest of us don’t?”

A pregnant pause ensued before someone’s horns blared somewhere down the street, jolting them both out of their reverie.

“It’s just a feeling,” Stephen mumbled.

“Not that I particularly like the idea of a diplomatic crisis on our hands, I don’t really see how it’s any of our business.” Then Wong asked pointedly, “Do you?”

A few seconds passed before Stephen finally answered. “No.”

He took a deep breath. “No, I don’t.”

Wong nodded, and was about to turn to go back inside when Stephen stopped him in his tracks. “Wong.”

“Stephen.”

“Do stay close. At least until I see the Asgardians home.”

Wong nodded again. One should not question orders when one’s boss was _the_ Master of the Mystic Arts, with a gift of clairvoyance unparalleled. “I’ll go put the kettle on.”

____________________________________

Loki woke to Thor banging his fist on the metal divider that separated them and the driver. When the pounding and the rattling jarred his sleep-addled brain to the point of physical pain, Loki reached to touch Thor’s shoulder and gestured at the button on their armrests.

Thor stabbed at it and the screen unrolled, finally providing them a view of the scene unfolding ahead of them.

“Yes, Sir?” A tinny voice spoke through the intercom.

“What seems to be the delay, my good man?”

“Traffic hold-up for some reason. They’re not letting us through.”

“Can you not find your way around it?”

“The General Assembly building is right there, where I’m supposed to drop you off, Sir,” the man in the suit pointed at a dome-like structure about two hundred yards ahead. “And this is a one-way street.”

Loki half-listened to the heated exchange between Thor and their chauffeur as he scrutinised the scenery outside, feeling more and more restless by the second. He had never liked being stationary for long periods of time. He liked being cooped up in one of Midgard’s metal death traps even less.

“Let’s just walk.”

Without waiting for an answer, Loki wrenched the door open.

The driver protested loudly, “Sir, I would advise against it! Sir, please get back inside!”

Loki slammed the door amid the agent’s frantic rambling into his radio and the blaring of the horns from the bustling New York traffic around him.

“Loki.”

He paid Thor no heed. “It’s only a short walk, Thor.”

“This has to be against protocol or something,” Thor muttered, tugging on his cape to pull out a crease that had set in as he set out on a steady pace alongside his brother.

Loki smirked, relishing in the comfort of having Thor look out of place for once. “Never pegged you as a stickler for protocol.”

“You were supposed to keep me in line, I believe.”

Squinting into the distance, Loki caught a glimpse of the police barricade that was holding up the traffic for some reason and waved his brother away with a distracted hand. “I stopped trying after your seven-hundredth name day, if you recall?”

Thor bellowed a hearty laughter, attracting curious looks from passers-by, most of them tourists from the look of their camera-and-GoPro ensemble.

“I do want this to work, Loki.”

_This?_

What could Thor possibly mean? Blending in? Their poor attempt at passing themselves as civilian Midgardians?

Their _relationship?_

_Oh no._

“This is to be our home now.”

Loki followed the line of Thor’s gaze. Pole after pole bearing the flags of all the countries on Earth stretched out across the Plaza as far as the eye could see; they flapped in the breeze in all their majestic glory, proud and imposing.

 _What are you hoping to achieve, Thor?_ Loki wondered, as he chose a flag at random to stop and stare at.

_Is this what we have been reduced to? Appealing to the current rulers of Midgard in the hopes that they would exercise their royal prerogative of mercy and grant us a flag pole upon which we may display the emblem of our fragile nation?_

‘The survival of our people is what matters.’

Was that not one of the first things Thor said atop his makeshift throne as the Statesman flew farther and farther away from the smouldering remnant of the only ‘home’ Loki had ever known, burning in the distance like a supernova?

Loki closed his eyes and the fierce Midgardian sun seared his eyelids, hot and red, as red as the blood still clinging to the underside of his fingernails –

And suddenly Loki was standing beside his brother the new King on that wretched ship he had commandeered, exactly as Thor had wanted him to do.

 _For our people_.

It was meant for Loki’s ears, the way Thor had said it.

He barely remembered what it looked like, the debris that was once shining, golden Asgard.

Why? Why now, after all this time? Why have the memories come back?

Loki grappled at his breast. Without his magic, his chest felt empty and hollow. There was no escape. Displaced from his home, his heritage, his family – one may consider it the most ideal form of escape.

A place of lost and unloved things, En Dwi once described to him, the utopia that could have been Loki’s. Should have been his, given time. If only Thor had not come back for him.

_But he didn’t, did he? Thor did not come back for you. No one ever did._

But Stephen Strange did, said the voice inside his head. It sounded like someone Loki knew.

Stephen Strange…what an enigma.

Loki had been falling, deeper and deeper into the abyss when suddenly a hand reached out to him. The hand of a stranger, in every sense of the word, with power emanating from every pore in his body...a power so raw even being near the man made Loki’s blood tingle like a million insects formicating under his skin.

Why _had_ he let go of his magic? He was powerful enough to siphon that power off the human sorcerer through their conjoined hands if he had so chosen to do - certainly powerful enough to resist the pull...to make the wizard work for it at the very least.

Why indeed.

Loki jerked his face away from the crimson sun and opened his eyes to the balmy image of his golden brother strutting down the plaza a good fifty yards away. He must have not realised Loki had fallen behind.

But to Loki’s surprise, instead of dismay, a foreign sensation of warmth washed over him as he watched Thor stop to speak to a crowd of school-aged children. They must be schoolchildren on a tour, judging from the identical, preppy uniforms, and their blushing field trip teacher as she fawned over arguably ‘the most handsome Avenger’, as Thor once called himself.

‘I want this to work,’ Thor’s words echoed suddenly in the acoustics of his mind.

I want _us_ to work, that annoying voice interrupted again. It sounded too much like Loki’s own voice to be anybody else, and for the hundredth time, Loki wondered if the Sorcerer Supreme’s meddling with his mind all those months ago had disturbed much more than repressed memories.

Had it given voice, an _actual_ voice, to his subconscious thoughts?

How _terribly_ bothersome.

His footsteps ten times lighter than they had been, Loki hurried to close the distance between himself and his King, into whose service he had voluntarily entered (body and soul _and_ magic), when the glint of something brighter than the sun caught the corner of his eye, reflected off an object in the shrubs just to the right of Thor – and Loki’s heart leapt to his throat.

_“Thor!”_

A sharp cracking sound splintered the air, and someone screamed a high-pitched, wailing cry.

Loki’s timely warning had Thor huddling himself over the group of children in the nick of time, shielding them from the barrage of gunfire.

A figure clad in black jumped out of the bushes and made a mad dash down the Plaza, slipping into the crowd of terrified civilians and tourists.

Loki reached his brother’s side and Thor herded the children into Loki’s bumbling arms with a gruff order, “Get them to safety.”

With neither the time nor the opportunity to protest, Loki felt the breeze of Thor’s cape brush against his cheek as the God of Thunder gave chase; allowing his reflexes take over, Loki reached out and pulled on hands at random in the direction of the nearest shelter, a concrete enclosure adjacent to an emergency exit about twenty feet away.

Once they reached the enclosure, Loki made the children crouch into a defensive position, but the school teacher, her face as white as a sheet, jumped to her feet, her hands pawing the children’s shoulders in a desperate head count.

“Jessica?” The school teacher frantically turned the girls around one by one, “Where’s Jessica?”

“There she is!” A small finger pointed. Loki whipped around to look, and his heart sank.

A young girl, six or seven years old at the most, stood alone in the middle of the promenade, crying her heart out.

A figure dressed in dark clothing was running toward her from the direction of the street.

Oh _shit_ –

Loki broke into a run; he may not have his magic, but he still had his speed – but as he neared the girl, he slowed down in relief for it was only a police officer, the same one he had seen manning the road block.

But his relief was short-lived, for the officer then reached inside a jacket and retrieved an object that literally took Loki’s breath away.

This is no police officer, he thought dimly as he stared down the barrel of a small assault rifle. Military grade.

Without thinking, Loki grabbed the girl with lightning speed and covered her with his body just as the first of the bullets rained into his back, shattering his right hip and thighbone. With a sharp cry, Loki fell to one knee, and a wildfire of raging, hot pain razed up the right side of his body.

Jessica screamed and screamed in his ear, but in his blinding agony, Loki’s grip around her only tightened.

“Just a moment,” he mumbled, “Give me a moment.”

With a shaking hand, Loki fumbled at his ankle. He could no longer feel his foot, but at least he found the small throwing knife he always kept hidden in the side strap of his boot. He wrenched it free just as he heard the cracking sound of what must be the charging handle the assassin was cocking back into its ready-to-fire position.

Norns, give me strength, Loki prayed silently, and with a sudden burst of strength, he swivelled his waist, using the momentum to launch the throwing knife into the air.

Something slammed into his stomach, forcing him downward and backward; Loki slapped the palms of his hands on the pavement to brace himself from crushing Jessica under the weight of his body, finding the ground beneath him slick with blood. His blood.

The knife found its target, lodging itself dead-centre in between the assailant’s eyes, but even as they began to roll back into his head, the finger was already locked on the trigger. From the number of bullets embedded in his back, hip and leg, Loki knew it was set on automatic in three-shot-burst mode.

Two bullets had lodged themselves in his abdomen, so that could only mean there was only one left.

Now where would you like the last bullet to go? Subconscious Loki asked.

The brain? _No._ All Loki had – all he had ever had – to be proud of, was his mind.

The girl?

_No. Never._

As Loki sank to his knees, he knew it was a decision made. The last bullet was going straight into his heart, and there was nothing he could do to stop it.

“Mother,” he whispered.

Jessica’s scream thankfully drowned the sound of the last bullet tearing into his chest, and everything went black.


	3. Chapter 3

“Over here, Thor!”

Where there once was nothing now stood a massive rectangular marble slab, its raised edges etched with sinister-looking hieroglyphics lining deep grooves on all four sides that drained into a catching basin made of gold at the foot of the table.

It reminded Thor of one of the examining tables the Healers of Asgard once used to treat and examine their subjects, living and cadaver alike.

Thor suppressed the shudders of terror before they could get the better of him and jeopardise his precarious hold on Loki. Yet despite the intense internal debate, he still could not bring himself to relinquish control of his obtunded brother to these mortal sorcerers.

“This is a mistake,” he wanted to say, scream out loud for all to hear. “Asgard. I need to take him to Asgard – ”

But Asgard is no more, Brother. Remember? Loki reminded him gently.

Thor jolted and tore his eyes away from the table to look down. He wasted precious microseconds waiting but the cadaver in his arms moved neither limbs nor lips; only silence and blood dripped from the corner of its mouth where once the silhouette of a smile danced under the guise of a sly smirk.

“Thor, snap out of it. Put him down,” he heard Strange say, but it sounded muted, muffled.

As if sensing Thor’s inner turmoil, Wong with his ever-sensible head on his shoulders, rapped his knuckles on the brass headrest of the slab.

“Hey, Sparks,” he barked. “Head goes here. Quickly.”

Loki’s head lolled like a rag doll and the blood dribbled red and slow down pristine white marble. Without thinking, Thor reached for him again, pulled his brother’s cold, slack face forward to keep the blood in, he needed to keep the blood in –

A hand wrapped around his wrist, he could not tell whose; it yanked him away from the table with such force that Thor involuntarily struggled, but despite the shakes, the scarred fingers clamped around his forearm were very strong.

“Thor, I need you to wait outside.”

“No!” Thor roared, and the walls bristled with electricity.

Stephen’s magic was the only thing keeping him from being electrocuted alive, but he was expecting it. With a twist of the wrist, Thor was no longer where he once stood.

The loud banging rattled the massive steel doors as Thor pounded and pounded shook the subterranean chamber to the core, but Stephen ignored it as best as he could to focus on the daunting task at hand.

“He’s breathing, but barely.” Wong spread his arms across the span of the table, casting his magic in a pillar of golden light down the length of Loki’s body. “He’s bleeding out by the gallon, though. I sense five, no, six entry points. Oh, he’s a _mess_.”

Stephen palmed Loki’s chest and felt the shirt squelch under him with blood but he persevered until he felt his spell lift. “I’ve released his magic.”

Wong felt the side of Loki’s neck. “Pulse is stronger, but still way too fast.”

“We need to stop the bleeding.” Stephen worked on the chest wound, the most life-threatening one of all. “His magic can only do so much.”

“He took a hit to the right hip…right thigh, no exit wounds.” Wong quickly looped a magic tourniquet around Loki’s upper thigh to try and halt the bleeding but blood kept gushing out in gouts. “Leg looks pretty bad...”

“Must have hit the femoral artery.”

“The one on the back looks like an entry wound too.”

“Let me see.” Stephen inserted his gloved fingers into Loki’s back and carefully dug around what he hoped to be the shallowest wound of all, where the paraspinal muscles were strongest in halting the bullet in its path.

He studied the bloodied, deformed projectile in his hand. “Just as I thought. The slugs have some kind of vibranium alloy imbued in their core.”

“Explains why the ballistic armor you made him wear was as useful as shredded paper.”

Stephen eyed the bullet-riddled Kevlar vest Wong had discarded on the floor. “I don’t think even Asgardian armour could have withstood the force of these bullets. These assault rifles are Tesseract-powered, just like the technology used by the Kree.”

“The Kree is behind this?” Wong’s voice rose in pitch. “Are we heading for another intergalactic war?”

“I’d bet all the money I no longer have on Hydra.”

But it was not the time for trivial speculation that could definitely wait. Stephen uttered a word, and his fist suddenly became full, near-overflowing with beads that glowed a bright, resplendent violet.

Wong’s eyes lit up, recognising the beads as the famed Kimoyo beads of Wakandan medicine.

“How did you manage to get your hands on them?”

“I may have made a bargain.” Stephen snapped the string and handed Wong a handful of the magic beads. “One of our relics, for a handful of these.”

While Stephen worked on inserting as many beads as he could fit into the wounds he could see on Loki’s chest and abdomen, Wong did the same on their patient’s back, hip and leg.

“Did you get them to part with some of their prized herbs too?” Wong asked hopefully. “Could make our job ten times easier. I may just get to catch the last ten minutes of Wicked Tuna.”

“Wong.”

The captains are going into an all-out war over bluefin and I don’t wanna miss it.” Wong begged, “Please tell me you have some.”

“Unfortunately, no,” Stephen shook his head. Wong was rambling, which could only mean that Wong thought they were severely out of their depth. Stephen wondered if he was wrong, but it was a toxic notion neither of them could afford to entertain.

“Let’s just hope Loki’s intrinsic magic’s enough to heal him once we get the bullets out.”

“And let’s hope Ra is in a good mood,” Wong muttered, eyeing the image of the Egyptian Sun God engraved into the marble at the head of the slab, the serpent wound around the golden disk on his head gleaming with ancient magic.

Both the mythical objects in each of the deity’s The scepter in the deity's left hand glowed with an ominous red glow, the ankh in his right with a luminescent, vibrant green that burnt just as bright, if not a little bit brighter.

A good sign it was, for the ankh was the ancient Egyptian symbol for life after all. 

Stephen followed the line of Wong’s gaze. “He’s still holding on. But there is no time to lose.”

Within seconds the Kimoyo beads took effect and the wounds where the deadly rounds had entered lit up like the Belt of Orion; Stephen studied the dark holes aligned in a neat constellation on Loki’s torso with growing alarm.

Just as they had once projected the image of the Mind Stone embedded within Vision under the Wakandan Princess’ bidding, the Kimoyo beads beamed a holographic image of Loki’s innards in all their four-dimensional glory onto the space between them.

“So the two bullets that entered the front are lodged in his spleen.” That was good news, unless Asgardians happened to have more use of the spleen than humans did of theirs. Stephen squinted hard. “But what’s that, between the bullet and his heart?”

“You’re not thinking of doing an open surgery right here, are you?” Wong sounded the closest to panicking as Stephen had ever heard him.

He did not answer. Wong had always been very good at filling in the blanks.

“Just saying, Boss, the hospital might be a bit more suited for this kind of stuff – ”

“They won’t have the first idea what to do with him,” Stephen said, a picture of serenity and calmness, but the storm brewing in his eyes was a testament to something else entirely.

He used a scalpel to make a few clean incisions on Loki’s chest, following the line of his ribs and using the hologram as a guide as he best as he could despite his tremor. Whatever the object was, it was the only thing that had saved Loki from instant death.

“Stephen,” Wong tried to reason. “I think it’s best if we call someone. I really don’t want him dying on us.”

“And you think I do?” Stephen’s eyes flashed. “This is all on me, Wong!”

“Then why won’t you call for help?”

“Because right now I don’t know who to trust!” Stephen snapped, slamming his wrists against the edge of the slab and nearly dropping his scalpel.

He took a few deep breaths to centre himself. It would not do to lose what little control he had over his emotions, and by extension, his focus. “Wong, please. You’re all I’ve got.”

“Alright, Stephen.” Finally, Wong relented. “I trust you. Let’s fix this.”

_____________________________________

The vibranium-fortified steel core proved to be a Catch-22 that fortunately worked in their favour; they may have packed enough punch to inflict significant bodily damage, but the Kimoyo beads had pulled them out easily enough, following the trajectory on their way out down to the millimetre.

Getting the bullets out had been the easy part. It was a good two hours later that Stephen and Wong finally managed to secure the bleeding, suture the many, many lacerations to Loki’s internal organs, and heal the damaged tissues enough that the grievously wounded Asgardian was no longer tethering between life and death.

Stephen found Thor leaning against the wall outside the chamber looking very much like a small child needing the comfort of a mother’s arms instead of the fifteen-hundred-year-old demigod that he was.

“Thor.”

The God of Thunder looked up slowly.

“He’s alive.”

Thor’s dull eyes brightened slightly, but the rest of his demeanour remained strangely apathetic.

“Can I see him?”

“He’s resting.” Stephen held out a hand. “Let’s just...talk for a while.”

Thor only looked at Stephen’s outstretched hand in disinterest. But he clambered to his feet anyway, his limbs heavy and sluggish.

Soon they were sitting in the Sanctum’s drawing room, in their usual chairs with their usual tea that no one would actually drink.

“How are you holding up?” Stephen asked quietly.

With hands still stained with Loki’s blood that had long since dried and caked, Thor gripped the sides of his head. “How do you think?” 

“It was touch and go for a while…but he’s gonna be okay, Thor.”

Thor’s single blue eye pierced through the crevices of his fingers. “I’m supposed to thank you?”

“No.” Stephen shook his head. “We’re supposed to count our blessings and hope he doesn’t take a turn for the worse.”

“For your sake, I hope he doesn’t.”

“You shouldn’t have come.”

Thor’s hands fell away from his face. “What?”

“It was a trap. Hydra set the whole thing up.” Stephen’s eyes were unreadable. “Stark’s sources confirmed this.”

“Why would – but the correspondence came through legitimate, official channel!”

“We know they have infiltrated intelligence agencies all around the world. MI6, the Mossad, S.H.I.E.L.D.” Stephen’s voice grew quieter. “The United Nations. That’s how they knew you were coming.”

“Why would Hydra want Loki dead?”

“Not just Loki. You, most of all.” Stephen paused; he needed to be careful with his words. “Asgard was once a distant power, a myth. But you stopped being a myth when your Father exiled you and dropped you in New Mexico right into S.H.I.E.L.D’s lap.”

Thor’s jaw clenched. “Asgard is no more.”

“Doesn’t matter. You are still an unknown variable.”

Thor’s voice grew tighter. “So Loki was what, collateral damage?”

“Eyewitnesses claimed the second gunman went straight for your brother. Hydra may have had their eye on Loki once, but now with both the Mind Stone and the Tesseract gone...”

Stephen shook his head. “I don’t know. It is not my place to speculate. But what I do know is this. In a way? Hydra has won.”

Thor sank back in his chair in stunned disbelief; he had never looked so lost.

“I do not follow.”

“King T’Challa has since withdrawn Wakanda from global initiatives following this incident and readopted its isoliationist policies. With Asgard, and now Wakanda out of the way...the world is all the lesser for it.” To hear himself echo the words once spoken to him by The Ancient One struck a chord of awe in Stephen’s heart.

“Do they seek war with us?” Thor asked softly.

“I do not know.”

“Do they want us to leave?”

“I do not know.” Stephen shook his head regrettably. “Their motive has always been global domination. The means by which they seek to achieve it are not always so clear.”

“Asgard is staying where she is,” Thor growled. “My brother’s sacrifice will not be in vain.”

“I am sorry, Thor. I really am sorry.”

“So am I, Strange.”

_____________________________________

Visitors came and went, official and unofficial alike. Among them were friends; these were the ones Stephen did not turn away, only redirected to cheer Thor up and keep him out of their hair for a few hours every day, just long enough for them to clean and dress Loki’s wounds.

There were lucid intervals as Loki drifted in and out of consciousness; these were precious and hard to come by but they were the only times Stephen could coax some liquid into him to keep his organs from shutting down like they almost did at one point.

Being the only Jotunn around for miles had its disadvantages; no blood product of any species was compatible and they had to rely solely on Loki’s slowly recovering physiology to replenish what he had lost.

S.H.I.E.L.D. offered to take Loki off his hands but Stephen vehemently refused. Stark offered his medical team to cover but again, the offer was met with a kind yet firm refusal.

No one dared to take Loki by force, however. At least Thor standing guard round-the-clock by his brother’s bedside was good for something.

No one was more surprised than Stephen to find Thor gone the moment Loki finally opened his eyes.

“Oh, it’s you,” he said flatly at the now-familiar sight of the human sorcerer, who strangely enough, had much more facial hair than Loki remembered.

Then Loki fainted again, drifting in and out of comfortable, restful slumber for the next few hours.

When he finally stirred, the sky was black, Thor was nowhere to be seen, and the wizard was still sitting by his bed.

This time, Loki fought to stay awake. His curiousity needed to be sated.

Before he could ask the first of many, many questions that plagued his fog-fuddled brain, Stephen Strange beat him to the chase.

“So your gamble paid off.”

“You’re one to talk.” Loki hated how weak his voice sounded. He hoped his choice of words could make up for his lassitude, or he would rather go to sleep again. “When what is a gamble for the rest of us ceases being a certainty for you, only then are we on level ground.”

“My hands have been inside you in more ways than you could count. Believe me, we are most definitely on level ground.”

Loki took in the large shadows under the Sorcerer Supreme’s eyes, the way The Cloak hung heavy and limp around his shoulders…and felt something in him give.

“What exactly are you accusing me of, Doctor?”

“You know exactly what.”

“I do not have the luxury of foresight, Strange,” he said with a gentleness that had more to do with the lack of fight than actual physical weakness, although that too was quite debilitating. “I did not know what was going to happen.”

“There is a difference between not knowing and not caring.”

“And you could tell which was which?” Loki regarded him with a challenging look.

Stephen felt his blood boil, but said nothing.

“Just as I thought,” Loki said with a sigh. “It will not do to be so predictable in life, Doctor. When you lose that margin to surprise people, it isn’t easy to get it back.”

“You weren’t sure you were going to survive.”

“I seem to recall a little girl behind me, or was she just a figment of my imagination?” Loki sounded genuinely surprised. “What is my survival to you but a secondary outcome?”

“Is it secondary? When you made absolute damn sure I had to save you?”

Stephen’s eyes were bloodshot. Loki wondered if he had slept at all.

A pain seized his chest, a pain so acute Loki had to fight the urge to reach up and clutch it.

Why did his heart ache? Why did he care so much if Strange slept or ate or lived or died? 

“You were not a pawn,” he heard himself say. “Mostly a means to an end.”

“By end, do you mean a political statement?” Stephen’s voice was tight with anger. “Or your own death?”

“Contrary to popular belief, I do not court death as a habit. But I certainly do not fear it.”

“Like I said. You didn’t care.”

“Why do _you?_ ”

“That’s what friends do, you asshole.”

“We’re not friends.”

“Aren’t we?”

“I cannot be friends with someone who is ashamed of me.”

“What gave you that idea?”

“You stripped me of my magic just to let me breathe your air and walk your streets.”

“On a bogus order. That is no excuse, but know that I regret it and that I wish I had never done it.”

“How easily lies come to you. Perhaps we are not that different after all, you and I.”

“Magic is as much my way of life now as it has been yours for centuries.”

“Asgard of old would beg to differ.”

“Asgard of old is no more.”

“How right you are, Doctor. Asgard is no more.”

Stephen looked instantly guilty, but Loki was far from finished.

“Yet the people are the same. The ones who survived anyway.” The whisper died upon his lips, cracked and bloodied once more. “I do not know enough of you to know if you are any different.”

“You are wrong to put the onus to love and accept oneself on anyone other than yourself.” 

“Am I? I am under no obligation to negate nor endorse that logic of yours, Doctor, as flawed as it may be.”

“Flawed or not, with all that self-hatred, you leave no space for anyone else.”

“Space for what?” Bewildered, Loki could hardly believe his ears. _“Love?”_

Stephen’s silence was answer enough, but Loki could no more bear the silence than he could angry words; with anger, he could at least retaliate in kind. 

_I am Loki of Nowhere_ , the thought came with a devastation he was not expecting, so intense it eclipsed the lingering pain in his chest. _And Mother is no more._

“I have no need for it. The one who ever did is dead,” Loki said flatly.

“Who? Aisling?”

Flabbergasted, Loki recoiled deeper into his mountain of pillows, his face ghastly pale against the white of the sheets. “How do you know that name?”

“You were calling out for her in your delirium.”

“Is that not the name of the girl I allegedly saved?”

“Try again.” There was no malice in Stephen’s voice, only the overbearing patience of someone who clearly thought he had the upper hand. “Who is she?”

“Was,” Loki corrected.

Stephen studied him for minutes on end. In a move that surprised even himself, he fished something out of his pocket and held the object just out of Loki’s reach. “Was this hers?”

Loki’s blood roared in his ears. This was not happening.

“Where did you get that?” he asked dimly.

“You had this in your breast pocket. It was the only thing that stopped the bullet from piercing your heart.”

Loki plucked it out of Stephen’s hand. It was only the size of a cherrystone clam, but with the hardiness of the toughest Nidavellir metal.

He reverently thumbed the depression the bullet had imprinted into the hard, impregnable shell.

“It’s the only reason why you’re still alive.”

At Stephen’s ominous words, tears began to gather in his eyes, stinging and hot.

“That cannot be,” he whispered. His diaphragm contracted with emotion, sending shooting pains deep inside his abdomen. He hugged himself with one arm, the coral brooch to his chest with the other.

“What is it, Loki?” Stephen asked with growing alarm.

In an unexpected move, Loki handed the precious relic back to him. “Read it.”

Stephen’s lips parted in surprise. _Do you trust me?_

Loki only gave him a tear-stained smile. “Let us call it a peace offering, shall we?”

Stephen obliged. It took the course of the next few heartbeats as he concentrated, breathing his magic gently into the object clasped between the palms of his hand, before the visions came, as clear and bright as day –

No. Something was burning. A great fire was burning below him.

The deck of the ship was filled to the brim with people. Asgardians, from the way they dressed –

This was the Statesman. He was on board the Statesman.

_Why am I here? What is it am I meant to see?_

Through Loki’s eyes, Stephen could see himself crouching on the stainless-steel inner hangar deck, slick with what could only be blood.

Whose blood? His hands were soaked with it.

Then he heard her.

“Aisling!” A shrill cry shattered the air, piercing and bloodcurdling.

His fingers dug deeper into the gaping wound in her throat, but something kept getting in the way.

Her cape.

He struggled to pull it free but the fabric kept getting sucked into her trachea with each labouring breath she tried so desperately to take.

Stephen manoeuvred his little finger to get underneath the snagging fabric, to fish out the object that was crushing her windpipe – and after a few more harrowing attempts at field surgery, he succeeded.

The cape clasp came free. Made out of a trio of identical clam shells arranged in a delicate triskelion, the natural pink colour of the clams was now scarlet-red.

“Breathe, Aisling,” he whispered.

“That’s enough.” Loki’s ice-cold fingers closed over Stephen’s clenched fist.

Jolted back into reality, Stephen dropped the cape clasp. It landed on the mattress just by Loki’s heavily bandaged waist.

“She was the daughter of the chieftain of the first garrison. He had been among the first to die on the Battle of the Rainbow Bridge.”

“She saw him fall and jumped out of her mother’s arms to get to her father, but one of the Berserkers got to her before I did.” Loki closed his eyes but it did not make the memory any less real. “I was too late.”

“It was not your fault.”

But Loki was not listening.

“The next day, Orla, her mother – “ Loki’s breath hitched in his chest. “She opened the airlock when everyone else was sleeping. We only saw her dead body floating past us in the window at breakfast.”

“I see her when I open my eyes. I see her when I close them.” 

The tears were falling freely now, but Loki no longer cared who saw him crying.

“You wanted to know why I did what I did, Strange?” Loki asked. What did it matter who was privy to his deepest, darkest secrets? He had no dignity left.

Just like it did not matter if he lived, or died. 

“I owe it to her. I owe it to her to give the rest of us who survived a better future.”

As long as New Asgard prospered...it was worth it.

“You have.” Stephen produced a handheld device and placed it gently on Loki’s lap. “You did.”

Loki blinked the last of the tears away and tried to make out the pages Stephen was showing him.

**UN Resolution: Cooperation between the United Nations and regional and subregional organizations in maintaining international peace and security in New Asgard.**

**Loki of Asgard: War Criminal or Selfless Hero?**

**Jessica Jung-Pearce – My Prince, My Hero**

“It’s all over the news.” Stephen took the Starkpad away and smoothed the blanket over Loki’s legs, careful not to touch his still-healing leg and hip. “You’ve made headlines all over the world.”

What little Stephen could see of Loki’s eyes behind the curtain of messy curls was still downcast and low.

“Now will you let me help you?” he asked quietly.

“Like you helped me the last time?” Loki shook his head slowly. “I don’t think so.”

Stephen’s alarm bells rang once more. It had never occurred to him that this was all his doing. “Did I do this? Was it me?”

“There are demons much bigger than Aisling in my head, Strange.”

“Even so, I can still help you. But only if you let me.”

“You will make me forget her?” Loki asked sadly.

“I can make remembering her not hurt so much.”

“Why are you doing this?”

“I told you. This is what friends do.”

“No. This is something more.”

“Do you want me to show you?”

“Who? Aisling?” Loki began to shake his head, “No, I don’t think I – ”

“No, not her,” Stephen interrupted. “She will always be there, Loki. But know that whenever it gets too much...you can always come to me. No matter which side you’re on.”

Hot tears began to blur Loki's vision all over again, but he could still make out Stephen's kind, gentle smile. “I don’t understand you.”

“I don’t understand you either.” Stephen shrugged. “But I do know one thing.”

Loki saw his hesitation and his heart began to race, “What?”

“You’re…important.” Stephen inhaled deeply. “To me.”

Loki frowned, not comprehending. “Why?”

Stephen shook his head helplessly. “I don’t know why, but you are.” 

“You need to do more than that to convince me, Doctor.”

Stephen reached out and laid his fingers against Loki’s temples; he felt the first pull of resistance but he massaged soothing circles into the dimples where Loki’s hairline ended and his ears began. “Shh. Trust me.”

Just like Loki had shown his deepest, darkest secrets…Stephen was going to show him one of his own.

For the second time that night, Stephen collected his bearing and concentrated, letting the magic flow unrestrained from the tips of his fingers into Loki’s mind.

Loki’s eyes rolled back into his head as the first of the visions assaulted his senses.

He could smell the sea, the taste of brine in the air. Water was all around him.

Was he drowning? No. No, he wasn’t.

He was just…floating.

And he was not alone. Someone’s arms were holding him up underwater, lifting his head above the surface.

The man’s hair was wet, plastered to the sides of his head. The white streaks in his hair were whiter than Loki remembered, but the face was still the same.

Stephen?

With a gasp, Loki jolted awake. Where Stephen’s fingers once rested on the sides of his head burned with a heat he had never felt before, like someone had seared a burning torch right into his brain.

“Is that real? What I saw?” Horror warred with fascination and utter disbelief. “Is that in my future?”

“Our future.”

It took Loki quite some time to calm his nerves down but he was nothing if not used to the stranger things in life. “Is that why you saved me?”

“There must be a reason why you end up in my bedroom time and time again.” Stephen managed a smile; it was small, painfully uncertain yet endearing all the same. “ _Spare_ bedroom.”

“Right. That is important.” Loki studied the grey hair at Stephen’s temples with new eyes.

“So important.”

“Friends sure do strange things with each other here on Earth.”

“They sure do.”

“Do they kiss each other in surreal times like these?”

“When one of them has narrowly escaped death, yes, I suppose – ”

Loki leaned across the bed and kissed Stephen boldly on the lips.

After a few seconds, they both felt uncomfortable enough to break away.

“No offense but that was..nasty.”

“Old blood is an acquired taste.” Loki ran his tongue along his teeth and grimaced, before spitting a gob of blood-stained spittle into the basin next to him. “I’m sorry.”

“I’m not. I feel like doing it again.”

“I...I feel like letting you.”

“But?”

“I am still not at all convinced that I’m not under some kind of spell.”

At Stephen’s incredulous look, Loki shook his head. “No, not that kind of spell. What do you humans call it? The Nightingale Syndrome?”

Despite the seriousness of the situation and the fact that he had just been gracefully rejected, Stephen burst into laughter. “Where did you learn that?”

At the sight of Stephen laughing, the frown on Loki’s forehead only deepened. “I have read most of your psychology books, you know.”

“Gosh. I have been called many things, but never that.” Stephen pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes. It had been quite some time since he laughed to the point of tears. “We really have to stop meeting like this.”

“I guess we do,” Loki said, chuckling softly himself in spite of the sudden pang of deep sorrow and longing in his chest.

But he gave into temptation and leaned in to give his saviour a last, lingering kiss on the cheek. “Thank you. You’re a very good friend.”

“Anytime.” Stephen smiled bravely through his tears that somehow still kept coming despite having stopped laughing long ago. “Anytime, Loki.”

_____________________________________

“ ‘You have my thanks, Wizard. I hope we never meet again’ ?” Loki murmured just as Stephen Strange’s portal disappeared out of sight after having transported them onto the green, green grass of New Asgard. “Mother would have been so proud for having raised such a well-mannered young man.”

As silent as a gravestone, Thor’s hulking figure cast a dark silhouette across the plain as he turned away and stalked off toward their settlement.

Thor had barely spoken a word to him since Loki regained enough of his consciousness and his strength to request for the first portal out of New York, a request strongly seconded by Thor himself.

“Thor.”

Five days Thor did not leave his side, and now he was giving Loki the cold shoulder. How very interesting.

“Brother,” Loki sighed. And people wondered why he found talking exhausting. “Won’t you say something?”

Thor stopped in his tracks but did not turn around. “What would you like me to say?”

_That we make a great team? That we left New York with more than what we bargained for, with our dignity and our identity intact?_

“That our mission was a success?” Loki’s attempt at breaking the ice fell short of Thor’s threshold for Loki’s brand of black humour; he watched the shadow grow in alarm as Thor straightened his shoulders.

“Mission.” Thor’s back quivered with barely concealed fury. “Is that how you saw it? A mission?”

“Then what did you see, pray tell?” Loki asked quietly.

“What did you think I saw?” Thor erupted. “I saw my brother gunned down in broad daylight and left for dead!"

“Of course I was,” Loki said calmly. “I don’t know how this still comes across as a surprise to you, Thor, but the people of Earth cared naught for me.”

“This has nothing to do with the people of Earth and you know it.”

“I do not see how getting all upset with me came into the picture,” Loki said. “For once I am the victim, not the perpetrator. Your reputation is safe.”

“Do you honestly think I care more about my reputation than you?”

“I know you care about your people.”

“ _Our_ people, Loki,” Thor growled. “And deny it all you want, but I know you care about them just as much as I.”

“I did what I had to do. For us.” No matter how many times Loki said it to himself, the lie never really quite sank in as well as he wanted.

“That is _my_ duty, Loki. As King. As your _brother_ ,” Thor’s eyes flashed angrily. “When I saw you lying there…”

“Thor,” Loki said warningly. “It’s over.”

“It’s not over. It never is with you,” Thor said in grief. “You just don’t _care_.”

“Thor…”

But Thor was not listening.

“And you would think after so many times seeing you die right in front of my eyes that it would get easier. Well, guess what, Brother?” Thor got in so close their noses almost touched. “It doesn’t get easier.”

Thor pulled back just enough that Loki could see him blink the unshed tears away.

“You just get better at hiding your grief. Time after time.” A sniff. “I would raze this world to the ground if I thought it could bring you back.”

“Lucky for us, you didn’t have to,” Loki said, awkwardly thumping Thor in the shoulder in a weak display of solidarity, but it only served to rile Thor up even more.

“For once, I just wish – ” Thor clammed up.

“What? What do you wish for?” Loki pressed, torn between wanting to know Thor’s answer or running the hell out of there. But when Thor was quiet for far too long,

“Tell me!” Loki demanded.

“I wish that for once…may the Norns take me first,” Thor said quietly. “Before you.”

Loki’s newly-healed heart skipped a beat –

“Perhaps then you will know how it feels,” Thor lamented. “Perhaps then once you do, you will not even think of doing it to me again, for I would be dead, and there is nothing you can do.”

“You can’t,” Loki whispered.

“Try me, Loki.”

“I can’t,” Loki managed.

His vision blurred suddenly, and Loki knew not if it was the tears shrouding his eyes or the abrupt embrace Thor had hauled him in, fierce and exquisitely painful…but Loki would not have it any other way.

Still, he had a reputation to maintain.

“Really? Here?” he grumbled.

“Would you rather I did it in front of the whole of Asgard?” Thor asked. “Or on national television?”

“I suppose here is fine,” Loki said grudgingly.

_______________________________________

“Valkyrie.” Loki stepped out onto the patio overlooking the gardens below. He had been looking forward to finally spending some time alone but obviously it was not meant to be. He could not very well go to sleep knowing she was out here doing Norns knew what either. “Fancy seeing you here.”

Valkyrie only grunted.

“What business have you to attend to this fine evening, My Lady?”

“What’s it to you?”

“Well...you happen to be sitting on my balcony.”

“It’s a free country.”

“And littering.” Loki eyed the row of bottles strewn all over the floor. “Something on your mind?”

“Do you get into trouble all the time or is it something that happens randomly?” she asked. “And by random, I mean all the freaking time?”

“Of all the Midgardian philosophy you could have picked up, victim blaming is the one you decide to go with.”

“And thinking through drinking,” Valkyrie said coolly, taking another deep, long chug from the bottle. “Keeps me from breaking things, and by things, I mean your head.”

Loki sighed and sat heavily in one of the patio chairs; the farthest from Valkyrie just to be on the safe side –

“What is one more person upset with me in the grand scheme of things,” he muttered.

“You really haven’t the barest idea, do you?”

“That my latest predicament has brought nothing but shame upon the Great House of Odin?”

“Who cares about the House of Odin?” She wrinkled her nose in a display of great disgust. “Five days of not knowing if I should be preparing for war or a funeral, that’s what you put me through.”

“Didn’t know you cared.”

“Your people held prayer vigils for you every night all-night, did you know that?”

Stunned, Loki’s lips worked to form words of vehement denial, his face a frozen mask of disbelief.

Valkyrie’s nostrils flared as she fought the urge to pummel some sense into him; all the centuries she had been bonded in service to the royal family, she had never met someone possessing of such equal measures of brilliance and stupidity.

Stupid by choice, too! she raged inside. “Well, now you know!”

“You would have done the same thing, Valkyrie,” he said quietly.

“I would,” she agreed whole-heartedly. “But I’m not the crown prince now, am I? And we didn’t spend years getting Thor out of his depression when you were gone, only to lose him again so soon, did we?”

“No, you didn’t,” Loki murmured at long last. With a sigh, he dropped to sit down beside her on the cold, hard floor. “For what it’s worth…I am terribly sorry.”

“Sorry doesn’t cut it, Highness,” Val said snappishly. She struggled visibly to get her legendary temper under control, succeeding only by the breadth of her hair. “I didn’t come here to wax poetic about your latest death wish.”

An irritable sigh huffed her cheeks, “You need to be more careful, Lackey. There aren’t that many of us left.”

“Loki the Undying they used to call me,” Loki offered sheepishly, only to receive a whopping on the back of the head. _“Ow!”_

“Lucky for you the wizard knew what he was doing,” Valkyrie said viciously, knowing just the right buttons to push. He deserved it after all.

To her surprise, Loki’s eyes took on a faraway look, soaring high above the night sky as if looking for something beyond the horizon.

“We all have demons, Lackey. You can choose to store them or drink them away, but you can’t let them ruin whatever’s left of your life.”

“When you said thinking through drinking...it doesn’t have to be alcohol, does it?”

“Sure. Less fun when it isn’t, is all.”

“Something tells me he isn’t a fun kind of man,” Loki muttered under his breath. “It’s all the eyebrows.”

“Who isn’t?” Val asked mildly, shaking her bottle and peering at it to see if she was anywhere near the bottom.

“Just a man,” Loki said absently.

“Need a bodyguard? You’re not supposed to go anywhere without one, you know.”

“You’re joking.”

“ ‘s true. King’s orders.”

“Don’t you dare.” Loki glared. “I’ve got my magic back now, remember? How would you like to spend the rest of your life as a salamander?”

Vallyrie only laughed. She lobbed the now empty bottle into the distance and plopped onto her back. 

The night sky looked especially beautiful tonight. 

She stretched her arms high above her head and shooed her wayward Prince away with a dismissive, very permissive hand. “Don’t stay out too late, Highness.”

___________________________________

“Am I intruding?” Loki inquired politely, revealing nothing of himself.

“Upon my space? Hardly.” Stephen gestured at the vast expanse of prime living area that was The Sanctum at this quiet hour of the evening. The Sanctum, being the quirky, sentient being that she was, could be quite welcoming when she wanted to and if she happened to like the company; from the way the lighting had brightened (and dimmed, Stephen noticed) in the most appropriate places, she seemed especially fond of Loki.

Loki had yet to take a step inside.

Quite flustered himself but loath to admit it, Stephen shook his head in the attempt to avoid eye-contact but still maintain the ambience of welcome at the same time. “I’m just pulling your leg. Come on in.”

“Here.” Loki abruptly thrusted a misshapen lump of an object in Stephen’s face, and the smell that permeated the brown paper in which the obscure object seemed to have been haphazardly wrapped up in as an afterthought reminded him of a cross between a field of hay and the musty scent of moth-eaten books in his archives.

“Uh…what is it?” Stephen knew it was impolite but he simply had to ask: Is it alive? Is it something that needs to be fed or caged? Or worshipped? He hadn’t the first inkling of what the proper gift-giving etiquette was in most cultures on Earth, let alone Asgardian.

To his credit, Loki remained very patient despite the urgent, almost insatiable need to roll his eyes. “Asgardian mead.”

“Is it safe for human consumption?”

“Hmm. No one’s died so far. Not the ones I’ve shared it with anyway. But the ancient Romans, they had much stronger stomachs...” Loki frowned. “Are you partial to mithridatism, with you being the Sorcerer Supreme and all that? Or shall we try it out on Master Wong?”

“He’s currently away, unfortunately.”

“Unfortunately.”

“So there’s just me, I’m afraid.”

“Unfortunately.”

Before Loki had the chance to run (oh he so wanted to), he found himself transported to a grand room with high ceilings and heavy drapes that matched the luxurious rugs on the floor abutting the roaring fireplace that were simply begging to be rolled in.

He may have never seen the chamber before, but a scholar knew his books, and his fellow. This was Stephen’s private study.

“I wasn’t expecting company.” With an embarrassed flick of the wrist, books flew in a whirlwind for their designated spots on the shelves, cushions righted themselves on the Ottoman, and day-old plates and coffee cups disappeared into the ether.

“No, you weren’t,” Loki agreed serenely. “Well, if you’re busy…”

“Loki. This isn’t how I’m dressed when I’m busy.”

Loki nodded, betraying nothing of his true feelings. Under normal circumstances, and if Stephen had been anybody else, the dressed-down Sorcerer Supreme would have been the victim of merciless teasing. The herringbone dressing gown may be stately, but it did nothing for Stephen’s athletic physique. It could also be the ratty T-shirt Loki could see poking out from the gaping neckline.

Loki decided to be kind. “I suppose you have seen me in a much dire state of undress.”

Unfazed in the slightest, Stephen cleared the last of the bric-a-bracs from the pair of armchairs by the fireplace. “I’ve been meaning to ask. How are you feeling?”

Loki shrugged. “Back to normal, more or less.”

“Yeah?”

“Yes.”

“Good. That’s good.”

The respite afforded by the awkward silence that followed had Stephen heading for the record player next, but Loki stopped in his tracks.

“Don’t. Please.” Loki sounded and looked apologetic. “You’ve…adjusted enough.”

“I can’t imagine this being something you listen to?”

“Doesn’t matter. I read my books in absolute silence.”

Loki made his way slowly to the chair Stephen had just vacated for his sake, and sat himself down, crossing his legs in that infuriatingly elegant style Stephen had never seen in another man. “But I’m not here to read, Doctor.”

“Music and drinks?”

“Music and drinks, yes,” Loki concurred. “Only if you don’t mind the company, of course.”

Stephen took the seat directly across. “Asgard a bit too quiet for you?”

“Something like that.”

“I…never thought you’d want to set foot in New York again.”

After a beat, “They don’t play Billy Joel up in Norway.”

“They don’t exactly play much of Billy Joel down here either. Not anymore.”

“What a shame,” Loki murmured, glancing at the vinyl spinning on the turntable. “Guess I got lucky.”

It had been a while since Stephen had company that he was forgetting his manners –

“So how does one serve mead anyway?”

“It depends on your preference. Stemmed glasses if you like it cold, whisky if hot.”

“How do _you_ like it?”

Loki’s stare was lost in the fire, the sparks dancing high and wispy in the green of his eyes. “It’s a bit chilly tonight.”

“Whisky glass it is.” Stephen busied himself at the drinks cabinet, methodically choosing the shot glasses that had at least been used in the last century.

A few minutes later, thanks to his magic microwave hands, he was serving piping-hot, cinnamon-infused mulled mead and surprising even himself; yet nothing surprised him more than the sight of Loki now sitting on his haunches on the rug in front of the fire, knees to his chest.

With a soft click, the record player changed the vinyl, and the first chords of a new song began to play.

So lost was Loki in the song he had not heard in decades, he only realised that Stephen had dropped down on the floor next to him when a shot glass appeared in front of his nose. 

Loki took a sip of mead. It was sweet, but not overly so, its honey base just tipping on that side of saccharine. Strong too, with floral notes layered with aromas of peach blossoms. Just like how he remembered it.

“Penny for your thoughts?”

Loki took his time with his answer. What would Stephen say if he were to tell him that they were drinking the last of his Mother’s prized honey wine stowed away in his pocket universe, treasured to the point of being almost forgotten? 

He chased the black thoughts away. It was fitting, to share it with someone like Stephen. Thor would probably just guzzle it down like the brute he was anyway.

“I seem to recall someone else singing this song.”

“The Animals, back in the 60’s?” Stephen guessed, his own shot glass empty.

“No. A lady. Very soulful. Sad.”

“Ah.” Stephen nodded. “Nina Simone. Yeah. The original’s always the best.”

“You know it?”

“I had it once. I, ah, traded the vinyl for something...much more important.” Now, Stephen added silently. He certainly hoped Shuri the wily Wakandan Princess was playing the hell out of it, just to make up for what he had lost.

 _And gained_ , a small voice said.

Stephen watched Loki swirl his glass in his hand as the prince murmured his condolences, “A pity.”

“I got something better in return,” he replied casually.

_I’m just a soul whose intentions are good_

Loki nodded almost placatingly. “This one’s not bad. You only ever hear this kind of voice on Midgard.”

Stephen was more than happy to keep Loki in the dark as to what the trade had involved, hoping the blush he could feel burning up his face would not give him away.

_Oh Lord please don’t let me be misunderstood_

He cleared his throat loudly. “Cigarettes. They make you, and then they kill you.”

_If I seem edgy, I want you to know,  
That I never mean to take it out on you_

“A pity.” Loki was nothing if not monosyllabic when words were not needed to fill the silence.

_Life has its problems, and I get my share,  
And that's one thing I never mean to do_

“Such is the life of man. Short, but live it to the fullest, and you won’t be found wanting.”

_Cause I love you._

Stephen leaned in close, and before he knew it, their lips met halfway, pressed together gently in a chaste, soft kiss.

It must have lasted less than a few seconds, but the heady, honey-laced kiss left him feeling dizzy and winded all the same.

“Wow,” Stephen laughed breathlessly. If he did not know any better, he would have thought the alcohol had gotten to Loki too, for the furious blush that had now coloured his bone-white cheeks.

“Too potent?” Loki asked, almost slyly.

“You have no idea.” Stephen wondered if Loki would let Stephen kiss him again, but his overthinking must have offended Loki somewhat, for a cold hand suddenly cupped the back of his head, guiding his mouth to a much warmer one in contrast, crushing their lips together again in a fevered rush of desire and newfound lust.

Soon they found themselves intertwined limbs and lips on the faux skin rug, Florence and His Nightingale, the pounding of their hearts as they surged chest to chest drowning out the sound of the spitting, crackling fire.

“Loki…”

“Doctor.” Loki tried again. “Strange.”

Stephen shook his head. “Stephen.”

“Stephen.” Loki liked the taste of his name on his tongue.

Stephen liked the sound of it even more and would have pressed Loki to say it again just because he could, but the dizziness was getting stronger now; he had a feeling it had less to do with the alcohol, more to do with the intoxicating thing, this object of desire he was finally holding in his arms.

“Maybe we shouldn’t have done this on an empty stomach.”

“Maybe I should have called ahead.”

“Hmm. You don’t strike me as the type who calls ahead for anything.”

“I don’t have a phone.”

Stephen burst out laughing.

“What did I say?”

“Nothing.” Stephen thought it wise not to bring up Thor; they could deny it from here to eternity, but there was simply no denying just how similar the Odinson brothers were. “You hungry by any chance?”

“For…food?”

Stephen rolled his eyes. “Yes, Odinson. You caught me at a bad time. I have nothing in my kitchen.”

Loki rolled forward onto his elbows, looking and sounding crestfallen. “Alcohol doesn’t suffice?”

 _Not for what I intend to do to you, it doesn’t._ “No, it doesn’t.”

With a huff, Loki dropped his upper body onto Stephen’s chest, effectively driving the last of Stephen’s breath out of his lungs.

“Does it involve me interacting with people?” Loki sulked against the sensitive skin of Stephen’s neck.

“I’ll do the ordering, don’t worry.”

This up close, the fire’s glow highlighted the black of Loki’s hair in a shadow play of gorgeous streaks of crimson and gold.

Stephen should not look at it too long, for the fire was dangerously traveling southward, tingling the area below his waist all the way down to his toes. “There’s this new shawarma place I’ve been meaning to try.”

“Not the one frequented by your Avengers?”

“God, no. That place is a dump.” Stephen gave a comical shudder. “No, this place gives you five free sauces of your choice, _five!”_

“And seriously? My Avengers?” he scoffed. “Come on.”

In a split second, they were both standing on the second-floor landing. Disoriented, Loki stumbled over his own feet trying to find his bearing; he would have fallen down the stairs had Stephen not been quick enough to grab onto his shoulders. “Careful.”

“We could have just walked,” Loki growled under his breath, channelling his older brother again without meaning to.

Shaking his head in amusement at his own inside joke, Stephen bounded down the steps of the grand staircase with the enthusiasm of a fully grown man to whom it finally clicked that entertaining did not have to mean cooking, something he happened to be terrible at, impromptu or not.

Just before he reached the bottom of the stairs, he stopped, and took his hands out of his pockets.

He turned his head to one side ever so slightly, allowing Loki to catch a glimpse of his bangs that just about skimmed the corner of one downcast eye.

“You coming?” Loki heard Stephen say quietly.

Finding his feet had never been harder, but once he did, they took a life of their own. His footfalls, unsure and thready in the beginning, became less and less calculated the more he closed the distance between them.

“Five sauces?” Hey, this chancing it thing might just be right up his alley – it certainly was exciting.

And electrifying, his senses told him, as Loki finally took the hand outstretched to him, strong and steady.

“Why not,” he breathed as Stephen tightened his hold around his fingers like it was the most natural, and not the chanciest thing to do.

Why the Hel not, indeed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. Nightingale syndrome (or effect) is the distinct attraction, whether it be sexual or purely emotional, to one's caregiver or dependant. 
> 
> 2\. Mithridatism is the practice of protecting oneself against a poison by gradually self-administering non-lethal amounts.
> 
> 3\. The song mentioned in this chapter is Joe Cocker's 'Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood'.
> 
> 4\. The scene of them swimming in the sea is a vision that became reality in Natural Selection.
> 
> If you're still with me, thank you for reading. Love Loki, love Stephen, SHIP Strangefrost.
> 
> Now on to the love story proper!

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Birthday, [DocWordsmith](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DocWordsmith/pseuds/DocWordsmith)!


End file.
